City Power monitoring areas affected by flooding
According to the power utility, they have been in disaster mode since the heavy thunderstorms on Monday, December 5.
City Power confirmed on Friday, December 9 that they are monitoring the flooding that is happening in most of the southern and western regions of Johannesburg which may delay their response times and repairs.
The City of Johannesburg’s (COJ) Disaster Management has since issued a warning, placing teams on high alert following the heavy rains this week.
According to the power utility, they have been in a disaster mode since the heavy thunderstorms on Monday, December 5 and the rains on the night of Thursday, December 8 have exacerbated the situation making recovery efforts difficult.
City Power Spokesperson Isaac Mangena said that they are still dealing with huge backlogs in different parts of the City, with outage calls on Friday morning, December 9 sitting close to 4 000.
“While most of the trees on our infrastructure have been cleared, it is the integrity of the equipment that we are monitoring and attending to. These include the flooded chambers, submerged mini substations, washed up poles, eroded cables, cable faults with some popping in the aftermath of the heavy storms,” said Mangena.
Heavy rains of Thursday night made matters worse in areas such as Lenasia and Roodepoort where there is currently huge flooding.
A mini substation exploded after it got flooded along Peacock Road in Lenasia, leaving residents without power.
“We can only attend to it after the water has subsided.”
Many others are submerged, some poles and over headlines are blown, water also seeped through into the vandalised infrastructure, tripping in some areas.
“The roads around Klipspruit, Florida, Lenasia and some parts of Roodepoort are flooded making it difficult for our teams to respond as quickly as we would want to the outages in the affected areas.
“We are anticipating that it will take us over a week to recover – weather allowing – with most of the problems expected to be picked up as the storms clear up. Our recovery efforts are also thwarted by load-shedding now sitting at higher stages, which has really taken a huge toll on our infrastructure, resources, and revenue.
“We have pulled in all available resources to deal with backlogs caused by load-shedding and storms, and we appeal to our customers for patience and cooperation as we deal with the challenges and ensure minimal interruptions to their power supply,” said Mangena
City Power is working alongside councillors and other authorities within the City, and reassured residents that they will continue to update them on the developments in their respective areas.
